Learning Objectives

1.1. Learning Objectives#

This chapter introduces the foundational concepts of OpenMP and shared-memory parallelism. By the end of this chapter, students will be able to:

Remember & Understand

  • Understand the motivation for parallel computing and explain the limitations of serial execution in modern computing environments.

  • Describe the shared memory programming model and distinguish between shared and private variables.

  • Explain OpenMP’s fork-join execution model, including the roles of the master thread and worker threads during parallel regions.

Apply

  • Identify the basic structure of an OpenMP program and correctly insert directives to create parallel regions.

  • Use OpenMP runtime functions and environment variables (e.g., omp_set_num_threads, OMP_NUM_THREADS) to control and query thread behavior.

Analyze

  • Analyze simple OpenMP programs to detect data sharing issues such as race conditions.

  • Differentiate between OpenMP and other parallel programming models such as MPI and Pthreads in terms of use cases and memory models.

Evaluate

  • Assess the suitability of OpenMP for various computational tasks, based on program structure and target architecture.

  • Evaluate the readability, portability, and efficiency of OpenMP programs.

Create

  • Construct simple OpenMP programs using the parallel directive to demonstrate shared-memory parallelism.

  • Modify existing serial code to introduce parallelism while preserving correctness.